Dr Andrew Thomson is a lecturer at Queen’s University Belfast and a Fellow at the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. His research interests include pro-government militias and civilian defence forces, dynamics of violence in civil war, counterinsurgency and "irregular" warfare, and state violence. These broad research interests are divided into three strands. First, he focuses on the role of  militias and mercenaries in US foreign policy.  His book, Outsourced Empire: How Militias, Mercenaries and Contractors Support US Statecraft, examined US support to various non-state armed forces in US interventions around the world. Secondly, Andrew is working on a series of papers on the effects of mobilizing civilian self-defence forces on the dynamics of violence during civil conflict as well as on the long-term effects on peace processes. He is specifically interested in how using civilians as combatants or security forces in counterinsurgency settings, as in Iraq with the Sons of Iraq program, affect insurgent targets of violence. Finally, he also focuses on the current peace process in Colombia in the context of multiple armed groups. He recently completed a project funded by the Global Challenges Research Fund on how FARC members’ interactions with other armed organizations influenced their disarmament process. 

He is also on the governing council of the Conflict Research Society (CRS), running the CRS Book of the Year Prize.

He is open to considering supervision of PhD projects around those three research focuses or more broadly on in the areas of conflict analysis, political violence, terrorism, counterinsurgency, and US foreign policy.

Dr. Andrew Thomson is the director of the MA in Violence, Terrorism and Security

He teaches on a variety of classes at the undergraduate and post-graduate levels:

PAI 2055 Security and Terrorism

PAI 2065 Peace and Conflict Studies

PAI 3038 US Foreign Policy

PAI 7007 Global Terrorism

PAI 7028 Violence, Terrorism and Security

He also contributes regularly to a variety of other classes in areas such as conflict intervention, conflict transformation and peace processes, international security, international relations, American politics, among others and specialist classes such as at the Institute for Global Peace Security and Justice Summer School. 

He regularly supervises MA and undergraduate dissertations on terrorism, ISIS and jihadist organizations, state violence, counterinsurgency, negotiations to end armed conflict, peace processes, among many other related topics. 

In he was awarded a Teaching Award 2015 - Student-nominated category of Queen’s University Belfast Teaching Awards 2015 and also received a Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCHE) in 2012.

Andrew was born in Oxford, UK, is of Irish descent but was raised in Colombia and the United States before returning to England for university. In 2007 he received BA in Politics and International Relations (1^st class honours) from University of Kent and in 2008 an M.A. in International Relations from University of Sussex. He then completed a PhD at the University of Kent in International Relations in 2013, moving to Queen’s University Belfast shortly afterwards.  Andrew is fluent in Spanish and a basic understanding of Portuguese, French, and Italian.